Chairman of Văn Bàn District People’s Committee Đỗ Văn Duy has confirmed the deaths. All victims worked at an exploitation site of Vàng Nhẫn Company in the district’s Mà Sa Phìn Hamlet, Nậm Xây Commune in the northern province.

The announcement of a higher death toll followed reports of five funerals in Cam Cọn Commune in the province’s Bảo Yên District. Local authorities said the five funerals were of gold miners in Văn Bàn District.

Phạm Văn Thắng, secretary of Văn Bàn District’s Party Committee, said local authorities were investigating the deaths and the missing gold miners with assistance from local residents and media, because gold mining was an illegal activity there, which had not been reported to the authorities.

Earlier this week, it was reported that two people had died and four had gone missing after their tent in a gold mining site in Văn Bàn District was swept away by floods, an effect of Typhoon Dianmu.

Dianmu, the third of its kind to batter Việt Nam this year, swept through the northern provinces over the weekend after making landfall on Friday.

An earlier report by the office of the central steering committee for disaster prevention said seven people were killed, two were missing and eight were injured in the storm. –VNS